


home is

by balconys



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alphabet Meme, Apartment hunting, Both of them are Losers, Crushes, Failed Attempts at Romance, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Olympic Kagehinas, Realization, more fragmentfics til i get outta my funk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 18:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2280171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balconys/pseuds/balconys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>confluence, n. </p><p>They meet as rivers do: a steady assimilation, a violent embrace; Hinata plunges deep into the undertow as Kageyama follows, eyes closed, matching every curve, every leap and dive, raking over grooves, their twin heartbeats resounding until only one remains. </p><p>[kagehina for each letter of the alphabet]</p>
            </blockquote>





	home is

**Author's Note:**

> so uh, i read the lover's dictionary and started dabbling in this over the past few months when uni gave me time to breathe. written to home by edward sharpe & the magnetic zeros. i hope you like your kagehinas nice and dumb bc that's the only way i can write them tbh

**acquaintance** , _n_.

It’s a familiarity – the teasing, the rough jostling in the bus over stolen meat buns and half-hearted insults spat haphazardly between faltering breaths in another morning that’s too bright and too eager to awaken – it’s easy, routine, and Kageyama wears it like a uniform, doesn’t think. But post-victory, volleyball team captain Hinata Shouyou flashes him a smile and it hits him like a train wreck; mouth slack, he watches the boy bound back into position, cheeks bright and neck gleaming under the stadium lights, and it’s strange because it’s still the same Hinata but _not_ , and Kageyama realizes: _oh_ , walking right into that tripwire, neurons firing into chaos, his mind drawing blanks. There’s a tightrope between _this_ and _that_ , he knows, between allies and something else, something shapeless and unnamed, and Kageyama teeters right over it.

 

 **airborne** , _adj_.

There’s something to be said about it, the way Kageyama regards him a full ten seconds before taking his chin in his hands like sliding antique vases out of cupboards; how the tips of his fingers are pinpricks of ice against his jaw and how his throat bobs once, twice, tentative. How Kageyama looks absolutely _terrifying_ in this moment: his head rushing in only for his mouth to collide inches from where Hinata’s lips lie in wait, and Hinata wishes someone would find him moorings quick, bind his limbs down to earth before it’s too late. Kageyama Tobio looks completely ruined, nothing but a stuttering mess of gangly limbs and too-shiny lips and Hinata’s heart swells, somersaults right into his mouth, his pulse rushing with the sweet burn of a helium-high. “You missed _,_ ” Hinata says, “wanna try that again?” and Kageyama turns as bright as the Nekoma jerseys blurring out of sight behind them, and Hinata _soars_.

 

 **aberrant** , _adj_.

He still isn’t used to people staying, and he wonders if it’s okay, if one day he gets used to things like this: after practice Hinata waits for him by the bicycle rack, a blight of damp orange hair against a blackboard of dusk, a trick of the light, and for a passing moment his steps stutter still. “Finally done brushing your leg hair, Kageyama-kun?” he calls, half-slung over the handles, wrenching him out of his thoughts and back to the tangible world where Hinata’s half-moon smile flickers like the dregs of day. “You don’t brush your leg hair, stupid,” he murmurs quietly, and finds his steps meeting his.

 

 **blindside** , _v_.

 _Pretty_ , comes the thought as a bead of sweat unclips itself from Kageyama’s brow and trails down his throat, catching light – Hinata watches with a spacey, open-mouthed kind of paralysis and fails to see the stray ball plummeting his way until it’s too late.

 

 **confluence,** _n._

They meet as rivers do: a steady assimilation, a violent embrace; Hinata plunges deep into the undertow as Kageyama follows, eyes closed, matching every curve, every leap and dive, raking over grooves, their twin heartbeats resounding until only one remains.

 

 **diluvial** , _adj_.

There’s a tremor in the ground, and Kageyama knows Hinata feels it too. It’s a tug that roils like roots like tides in his gut, and over the net the opposing team bristles, on edge as Kageyama recedes into the service line. The curdling sky over a still-sheet of blue. Hinata turns his head and the curve of his smile grows heady beneath the field lights, ( _we’re going to win this_ , the boy had told him earlier, and the promise had shuddered fiercely into stillness against the lockers) as the last heaving wave drags itself high off from the shore, the ball goes airborne, and the world floods.

 

 **eros** , _n_.

“I, I wanna have sex,” Hinata says in a trance, like an afterthought, tearing his eyes away from the passenger window where the city bends in a multicolored blur of bars and low-lit diners, and Kageyama _swerves_.

 

 **flux** , _n_.

The year they turn twenty-five – also the year they get their first ever Olympic medal (bronze, but no one’s complaining; okay, so maybe they did, but it was short-lived, unlike Last Time) as well as Bunny, their bright-eyed tabby with the rebellious caramel mane – they get the keys to their first shared apartment. The walls are dull and yellowed and there’s a fissure in the bathroom ceiling where cold water drips through, but it’s _theirs_ , and they make out on the floor then and there three steps after the door creaks open, an impromptu celebration. Hinata drags him down again later for another round on the tabletop of what Kageyama, gasping between breathy kisses, realizes belatedly must be the kitchen, elbow falling into the sink with a painful metallic thud. Absurdly enough they find the bedroom last, and they spend the rest of the sinking day staring unquietly up at the ceiling, the blood high on their cheeks, sprawled wildly on warm wood because Hinata manages to hook his legs around Kageyama’s after he kicks him off the bed.

“You’re still a jerk,” Hinata says, his breath uneven.

“And you’re still short,” Kageyama replies without missing a beat.

“Yeah and you’re still a— _what’d you say_ ,” Kageyama snorts at the expression twisting on Hinata’s lips; Hinata swings a leg over his lap, swivels upright and leans down until they’re merely breaths away. “Say that again. I dare you.”

But Kageyama just barely tilts his chin up before Hinata loses it completely, rushing forward so fast their noses collide. Kageyama blinks, slowly smiling into the kiss, smiling so hard Hinata’s kissing teeth.

“Heh,” Hinata says, pulling away, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Kageyama’s still smiling drunkenly up at him, his favorite kind of smile, and Hinata swallows, tries to quell the fluttering in his gut. “You know, you were a real piece of work. Ten years ago, I mean. I like the Kageyama now better. You’re nicer now, I guess. I think."

Kageyama considers this for a moment, amused. “Well,” he starts, rising up on his elbows, “ten years ago I couldn’t do this,” and he tugs him down by the ears, fits their lips into place.

 

 **ghost** , _n_.

“Gah, you’re so annoying!” Hinata yells, pulls at his hair and whips around, stomps off somewhere over the benches, with their team, maybe, where the world is; it’s stupid, Kageyama knows, but suddenly it’s a little hard to breathe.

 

 **home,** _n._

Hinata had promised it’d be an adventure, but apartment hunting ceases to be anything but once three o’clock sinks in at the peak of day, and the hunger pangs arrive; it feels like the very sun’s harbored in the bedroom set up blearily on display for them, every passing second throbbing systematically in Kageyama’s temple like a jammed minute hand thrashing in place.

“It’s the view,” Hinata explains, nearly _vibrating_ in delight, but Kageyama still thinks The Sol’s the worst apartment they’ve visited today. There’s far too much peach, the disgusting kind, the kind that’s painful to look at, and on foot the nearest volleyball court’s an entire hour away. Plus the fact that they don’t have their own gym, or a laundry service either. Just a cheap side offer of breakfast.

He’s trying to pay attention as the clerk delivers a sermon on the mount but Hinata is good at being distracting; the boy drapes himself over the terrace as his hair sinks into the sun overhead, the edges catching fire. “Look out! Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio's here!” he declares into the converging street below, and when Hinata turns to him Kageyama thinks his smile has a little bit of sun in it, too.

“Yeah, okay,” he says out loud, wonders why he even cared in the first place.

The clerk stops midsentence and blinks, “I’m sorry, sir?”

“—Yeah. We’ll, uh, we’ll take it.”

 

 **intervention** , _n_.

“I-it’s okay, Kageyama-kun,” Yachi smiles tremulously up at him, an hour before The End, nodding vigorously at the paper bag she’d pushed into his hands. Her eyes take in Kageyama like a patient sprawled on an operating table – volleyball shoes, combat jeans, baggy shirt, Hollywood cap – and she swipes her sweaty hands on her dress and squeezes Kageyama’s hand. “I’m here to help.”

 

 **incongruous** , _adj_.

A complementary dinner from the hotel, and who were they to refuse, right? Not like they would, in any case, and they’d barged right through the glass doors in their sportswear, right past the tall, sour-looking female receptionist who’d turned her sharp nose up at them like they were most vile microorganisms to ever stroll into her restaurant. Hinata’s knees are pink Band-Aid-mottled patches as they bunch out from the beneath the tablecloth, joggling incessantly up and down; across the table Kageyama sits in meaningful silence.

“And what will you be having, sir?” Japanese sounds ten times more sophisticated on their waiter’s tongue, and Kageyama stops fiddling with his napkin to stare. Hinata’s eyes glaze nervously over the menu; there’s a jelly-looking thing that looks like it has peas in it, a pristine duck dish, tiger crabs and other things he can’t pronounce. Hinata jabs his finger crudely at a picture and says, “We’ll take that! And this – two of it. And, uh, yeah!” Their waiter’s smile looks strained but Hinata beams at him anyway as he briskly gathers the menus and courteously takes his leave.

There’s too much polite, idle chatter and trickling violins and too little light that falls like mist over their heads, everything too slow and sleepy and caught in a golden candlelight haze and Kageyama’s pretty sure they’re the brightest ornaments in the room, red sweatshirts and all; somewhere in between Hinata spits the wine back into its cup and Kageyama picks at his teeth, flicks it somewhere to the floor – except, it lands on some middle-aged woman’s embroidered shawl a table away, and Hinata nearly dies at the sheer mortification unfolding on Kageyama’s face.

“That’s it,” Kageyama says, barely an hour into their little escapade, throws his rumpled napkin across the table.

Hinata looks up from his cake. “Where are we going? Are we gonna practice more?”

Kageyama makes a face. “What else?”

 

 **juxtaposition,** _n._

A resounding slap, a rush of air and fumbling limbs – and again Hinata fails to cover, the ball echoing against the empty space half a foot to his left, ricocheting somewhere off into the bleachers. Hinata blanches, the color swirling down his face. He whips around and stutters out a flimsy, “W-w-wait, I promise I’ll—“

“You’ll get it next time,” Kageyama replies evenly, something like a runny half-cooked smile clinging to the edge of his mouth as he jogs off into the service line.

Hinata blinks.

 

 **kindle** , _v._

The first is a disaster Kageyama would rather not recall, involving knocked-down lamps and matching bruises and an over-abundance of spit.

They get it right, finally, _thankfully_ , on their thirty-something try. Hinata finds the sacred spot just below Kageyama’s ear, knows he gets it right because Kageyama’s muscles suddenly coil into springs beneath him. “Y-yeah,” Kageyama gasps, closes his eyes, cheeks brightening, “that’s—“

 

 **language** , _n._

He’s still learning the value of words, the weight of them, their cut and shape and size; how each of them fits squarely into his palm as a ball would, wielded the same way. How _thank you_ sits awkwardly between the spaces of his teeth but glows in the domes of Hinata’s cheeks; _you can do it, you’re strong, we can win this—_

 _I’m sorry_ – a strange, slippery thing that falls apart even before it can form on his tongue; how it saves them from unraveling, saves him.

 

 **miscalculation** , _n_.

Their twentieth disaster could be summed up with this: Hinata’s in the shower, the water’s warmth sinking deep into his marrow, and then there’s a cloud of air breaking against the back of his neck and the sanctity shatters; Hinata _squawks_ , whips around and his head collides painfully against the tiled wall, and, there’s _Kageyama_ , who’s screaming, too, his hair sagging fast beneath the running water. Hinata’s eyes drop for a fleeting second only to frantically snap back up, his cheeks blistering.

“K-K-Kageyama? What the _hell_ —“

“Sh-shut up! Just shut up! I was—see—“ and he’s tripping backwards with the curtain bunched up tightly in his fist, over his front. “You weren’t supposed to—damn it!” he says, and cockroaches off, his backside glinting daintily in the bathroom lights. “Fuck!” Hinata hears him say, muffled through the door, and stays in a kind of stunned stupor for the next 10 minutes.

 

 **nondescript,** _adj_ **.**

Typical off-work days in the apartment unfold like this: a cord of filtered sunlight climbing lazily through the gap in the windowsill like ivy; their legs twined, propped up over the table, the both of them slouched in too-loose T-shirts arguing in front of the TV. Kageyama staring wistfully out the window where the pavement simmers in a steady broil, too hot for anything but groaning in front of a whirring fan. Hinata singing unabashedly in the shower as Kageyama makes them dinner – nearly burns himself with soup as Hinata’s voice fractures at the edge of one nonexistent note of some dumb English song they heard on the radio.

(It’s catchy, he admits, a smile prickling frustratingly at the corners of his mouth as he mops up tomato guts all over the floor, chewing on a smile, and lets the unquiet stretch on until evening arrives.)

 

 **onslaught** , _n_.

Hinata pulls him aside before a game and suddenly Kageyama finds himself crowded against the lockers, cold metal pressing against his back, seeps like water to taint his skin. “Oi—“ and then their eyes meet, and his tongue shrinks back into his throat.

“Kageyama,” Hinata’s saying, his palms branding the skin just above his waistline, his eyes searing, “just shut up, okay?”

And he does.

 

 **peregrine,** _adj_ **.**

They still shove at each other to claim their right to the window seat on plane rides, and it’s the stewardess’ twitching smile that reminds them that they’re no longer thirteen or mere faces in the crowd, not anymore, not after that stunt in the Olympics. The tour sends them zigzagging from place to place: sprawled out on hotel beds in idle mornings, Hinata wide-eyed at everything that moves, Kageyama’s nose buried in a Japanese-English dictionary; late night Skype sessions with Yachi, because time zones are impossible and also because she needs to know if her boys are still alive and still in one piece; Disneyland, too – not the real one, but a fairly close imitation – some small fair next to Chinatown; Kageyama tight-lipped, hands sweating profusely on the railing, Hinata’s stomach clenching and unclenching like fists. “You’re supposed to scream, stupid!” Hinata laughing as Kageyama sinks to the grass after the octopus ride; pictures in coffee shops, monuments, Kageyama drooling against bus windows; skyscrapers, autographs, fond smiles hidden behind scarves, city streets, stale bread, and the both of them, smiling, smiling.

 

 **quiescent** , _adj_.

Looking back, what he remembers most – more than the pain, or the final whistle, or the quiver in Daichi’s cheek as he turned away – is this: silence. Silence that lined the walls of the locker rooms, perched heavily on tongues; the silence that crept into his mouth as he stepped into the strange whiteness of Kageyama’s room – 113 in cold sharp letters, the nurse had directed. How quiet his breath seemed, when he shed his shoes and curled over the sheets next to him, carving pictures listlessly on ceilings. How they didn’t need to speak.

 

 **rudimentary,** _adj_ **.**

He hates Kageyama Tobio, Hinata tells himself at fourteen, and it’s easy, because anger is easy; he hates Kageyama, folds it and slides it neatly into his heart. Revels in all he doesn’t know.

 

 **symmetry,** _n_ **.**

He’ll rise from sleep and feel the perennial itch to practice, and Hinata will already be waiting outside his house, riding circles on his bike, the ball bulging from his inside his backpack.

 

 **tipsy,** _adj_ **.**

Hinata tries alcohol because he’s finally of age, but predominantly because Bokuto drinks, and Bokuto is cool and super awesome and everything he wants to be – and, by the warped rules of substitution and failed logic thinks it might rub off on him, somehow. He gets absolutely trashed in the first few drinks, first warnings signs being the flushed cheeks and the complete shutdown of function over his amygdala, and he forgets what it is to fear Kageyama Tobio, who comes tripping into his room at 1 AM in the morning and immediately starts screaming his head off, his own brand of concern. Hinata slides into Kageyama’s lap like a glove and giggles and giggles, and Kageyama relents, holds him until he falls asleep.

 

 **ubiquitous** , _adj_.

“Look—look! It’s us, there, it’s us, see, you and me!” Kageyama peers out the bus window and at the direction Hinata’s pointing his finger and finds a mirror image of the both of them staring solemnly back at him out of a twenty-foot Gatorade billboard poster, and he feels his heart jolt. “...look so cool,” Hinata’s saying wistfully, nose pressed against the glass.

 

 **verbose** , _adj_.

“I think! I think you’re a very good player!” Kageyama nearly hollers as if Hinata had been standing somewhere further across the road; Hinata yelps, shoulders braced, and knows something is very Wrong. “But!” Kageyama continues, “Your serves are still crap and your defense is full of holes. At this rate nothing is going to change and all you’ll ever be is crap if you don’t listen to what I say! That’s why – that’s why you need to come over,” a pause, and then, frantic, “So I can kick your ass into gear, of- of course! Idiot!”

 

 **white lie** , _n_.

“Psssh, please, ha, don’t flatter yourself, wh-why would I draw you, huh!” he’s sliding backwards after jumping off his seat with the sheet of paper he’d ripped out of Kageyama’s hands, his backpack long forgotten on the floor as he turns and _flees_.

 

 **x,** _n._  
  
"R-right here," Kageyama stutters, presses a hand over Hinata's heart and promptly evaporates.

 

 **yield,** _v_ **.**

It starts with something dumb, like how everything is between them, but also because Hinata is maybe kinda-sorta a bit of a romantic and wants to watch Pocahontas and Kageyama just wants to learn how to bake a proper cupcake. “What are you, twelve?” Kageyama sneers, snags the remote. Hinata spits back something equally sardonic, and somehow they’re yelling about morning breath and Kageyama’s poor sense of fashion and romance and suddenly Kageyama blurts, “I’ll make you the happiest, just watch you fucking annoying idiot,” and everything else just dies a quick, painless, death on Hinata’s tongue.

 

 **zeroth,** _n_ **.**

“We’re coming back,” Kageyama whispers, rests the flat of his palm on Hinata’s crown. Hinata nods, his eyes bright through the tears, and echoes, “Yeah, we will,” fingers curling fiercely around Kageyama’s trembling wrist, the open sky witness to the birth of another shared promise.

 

 

 

 

 

end.


End file.
